Anticipating the End

One week.  Seven days.  Twenty years.  It's really here, the day I've thought about for so long.  I've had barely a minute to think about it these past couple of weeks, but I know it's coming and though I am excited to get into a new place, I'm apprehensive of the sadness that's coming. 

That's a picture of my house when Joe and I first bought it.  I found this and a few others while I was packing yesterday and looking at them made me a little sentimental.  We bought the house together back in 1998 and I bought it out from him in 2008.  That's a lot of time spent inside these walls and it's going to be an adjustment to go live somewhere else. 

The house looks so different in this picture than it does today.  Both Joe and I together and then just myself put a lot of work into this place over the past twenty years and though it never quite got to perfection, I'm proud of what we...what I, did to the place..a new kitchen, a deck with a new sliding glass door where a window once existed, a new bathroom, and lots of other smaller things, too.

It's been a great couple of months for me since I decided to put the house on the market towards the end of the summer, and I'm trying to ride that wave for as long as I can.  The selling process went easier and faster than I thought it would, I ended up finding a great new place to inhabit, and to boot, I met someone pretty special, too!  He's the first meaningful person in my life in awhile now, and having him around, well, just makes me happy.

His and my lives have had some parallels to them in the two-plus months we've been dating, and that's one of the reasons I'm apprehensive of the end of my time here.  You see, just a couple of weeks ago, he moved out of his own place, the very first place that he had ever called his own, to go live with his best friend.  And just like me, he was lead to have to move earlier than he had planned, and as the days wore on towards his move, I watched and observed with a keen interest. 

The experience was tough for him as he quickly dismantled his home.  He texted me pictures of things he was packing, and the sentiments he was feeling were much the same as those I've been feeling as I go through my things now.  Memories.  Reminders of time spent in my home. 

When the day finally came for him to move, though I didn't see him, I could feel him.  My mind empathized as he spent the last night in his own place, feeling sentimental and sad, and then the displaced feelings he experienced when he first began to settle into his new digs.  Now as my time approaches, I feel that my own last moments here will be even more sentimental and sad.  I am not looking forward to that, but I know he'll be with me, be it in body or spirit, and that makes it all a little better. 

I may or may not reflect a little more in my remaining days here, that depends on the time I'll have.  We shall see.   In the meantime, my guy has settled into his new environment well, and luckily for me I've got a great place to take my mind off of the past and get excited about what's to come.  Stay tuned...